


we choose to move on

by Avengerz



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Sleepovers, but like only a bit, this just in: talking about your feelings is good actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avengerz/pseuds/Avengerz
Summary: In the days between Old-Newtown and before meeting up with Buddy, Juno needs some time to Process™Luckily, Rita's there to help.
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54
Collections: Penumbra Podcast Gift Exchange





	we choose to move on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AWalkingParadox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWalkingParadox/gifts).



> My assignment for AWalkingParadox! I really enjoyed writing this, and hopefully they'll enjoy a bunch of angsty shmoop and the power of Friendship as much as I do!

Juno wakes up with the sound of blaster fire echoing around his empty skull. His body is tense as a strung wire, his breathing quick but silent in the dark bedroom. It’s a dream, of course. A dream, and a stupid one at that. 

For a very long moment, Juno Steel breathes deeply and thinks very hard about nothing. The room isn’t silent - few places in this part of Hyperion City ever are, but tonight he times his breathing to the sound of Rita’s light snoring through the thin walls. 

She’s hardly let him out of her sight since they met up in Old-Newtown, and he can’t say he blames her. He hurt her when he disappeared into the martian desert. Juno knew if she had it her way, they’d both be snuggled up in front of the streams, a sleepover on the couches every night so that Rita could keep him in view, reassure herself that he was safe. She doesn’t say as much, but Juno’s not an idiot, even if he’s ready to admit that he sure acts like one sometimes. He notices the way Rita can’t help but keep patting his shoulders as if to prove to herself that he’s real. He left, and then he came back, and then he was  _ not him _ , and now she just wants her boss back. Her friend.

Juno would be lying if he said he was unaffected by the whole affair. There exists inside of him a version of Juno that looked at Rita and called her  _ target. _ His hands grabbed her and made her scream and he doesn’t know how to live with the knowledge of what she looks like when she’s afraid of him. During the day he stares out the windows of Rita’s apartment and determinedly doesn’t think of anything, and ends up thinking quite a lot about everything. 

He sees the looks that Rita throws him, knows that his silence is scaring her, but he doesn’t know how to talk about what happened. He doesn’t know how to talk about the SOUL, or Ramses, or Sarah and most of all he doesn’t want to talk about the decision he made walk towards certain death in the Martian desert without even trying to run for safety. 

He doesn’t know how to talk about the scars he bears on his skin and his soul. So he sleeps on the cold bed in Rita’s small guest room and he lets Mick take him out to lunch and he thinks and he thinks and he doesn’t talk about it.

But now, a full 48 hours after Juno found Ramses dead at his desk, and the echoes of an even older nightmare still rattling around his brain, Juno thinks he’s ready to talk about it.

It’s harder than it should be to slip out of bed, to gather the blankets around him as he stands. The comforter falls heavy over his shoulders.

He doesn’t know how to talk about Benzaiten, but that’s what he dreamt about.

It’s stupid to hear the laser blast, because when his brother died Juno was halfway across town in a useless police station with a useless badge. He wasn’t anywhere close to being able to save the brother he loved, but that seems to be a pattern in Juno’s life.

In his dreams, though, Juno’s there. He’s there, and he’s a child again, and he’s watching Sara Steel point a shaking hand at Benzaiten and pull the trigger, and Juno is always too slow, too little, too useless to do anything to stop it. Benzaiten collapses, and Juno sees the light fading out of his brown eyes, somehow deeper and richer than Juno’s own.

It’s an old dream but it aches just as sharply as any of Juno’s newer scars. And now, with Ramses’ voice still echoing in his ears, it’s too much.

So Juno shuffles out of the guest room with a blanket around his shoulders and a haunted look in his eyes. He can’t bring himself to fake surprise when he sees Rita already on the couch, a stream flashing gentle light across her features as she turns to look at him. She had been asleep just a few minutes before, he knows, but now here she is, with a distraction and a cup of cocoa still steaming.

He reads the compassion in her gentle brown eyes and has to look away. She doesn’t push, just pats the couch next to her and holds out the mug of cocoa. Juno settles next to her and accepts the mug and the brush of her fingers through his tangled hair, and feels calm smooth away the buzzing of his skin. 

Somehow, Rita always knows exactly what he needs. Juno’s chest fills with a warm, cloying emotion that traps his voice in his throat, but when he nods at her and spreads the blanket across them both, he thinks she understands.

Together they sip cocoa and watch a truly terrible show, and it’s everything Juno could have never known to want, when he was young and desperate and hurting, but it’s everything that he needs. 

Before long, Rita starts up a running commentary on the love triangle in the show, and Juno can’t help but to insert his own biting commentary. By the second episode, their conversation has wandered away from the stream to territory far more uncomfortable, but much more vital.

Juno isn’t surprised. Rita’s always been the best at tricking him into talking about  _ emotions _ . It’s awkward and halting, but Juno manages to recount what exactly occurred during their time apart. Alessandra and Perayra and the Piranha and a golden city that never was. When he stutters his way through his decision to stay out in the desert, Rita’s face goes so still and sad that Juno can’t help but keep talking.

“It’s different now, though,” he attempts a crooked smile. “I got some sense knocked into me, and, uh. I’m not gonna do that anymore.” There are tears gathering in Rita’s wide eyes, and Juno can’t stand this. “Probably won’t get many more opportunities to wander into the Martian desert, anyways, so. Oh gosh, Rita, please don’t start crying, I feel bad enough as it is!

She flings her arms around him and says, voice warbling with tears, “you betcha you’re not gonna get another opportunity! I’ll tie you to a chair myself if I have’ta, Mistah Steel!” The words are firm but the hug is soft, and Juno allows himself a chuckle.

“Yeah, I bet you would. But really, I’m not gonna try.” He pulls back a little and meets her watery gaze. “I know I haven’t been dealing with… well, with pretty much any of the shitshow that my life has been, but I’m working on it now. I really am.”

Rita beams, her smile no less bright for the tears making tracks down her cheeks. “Well it’s about time! For such a smart lady you sure do spend a lot of time blaming yourself for things that you can’t help.”

Half-remembered blaster fire in his ears, and Juno blinks back a prickling sensation in his own eyes. Rita’s face softens. “I’m real proud of you boss, honest. And hey, you know I’ve always got your back, right?”

Juno smiles, and it feels over-large and unwieldy on his face, awkward in its genuinity. “Yeah, Rita. I know.”

Her arms tighten around him, and he hugs her back just as tightly. 

Ramses is dead, and so is Ben, and Oldtown is gone and so is the person that Juno Steel used to be. It’s never easy, the transition between  _ who-I-was _ and  _ who-I-will-become _ , and decades of Mars’s particularly vicious brand of trauma doesn’t make it any easier. Juno’s not sure who he’s becoming, and what that new version of himself is going to do, or even if the person that he is not-yet but will-be even belongs on Mars anymore.

One way or another, though, he knows he’s got Rita at his side, at his back, in his comms and in his heart. One way or another, they’ll make it through.

“Oh, Mistah Steel, look! Jynah’s going to give her sea diamond to Jude, I called it!”

Juno looks back at the stream and scowls. “Really? Jude’s an asshole, why wouldn’t she pick Paron?”

“It’s true love!” Juno rolls his eyes at that, so Rita hits him with a pillow, and of course Juno can’t allow that without throwing a pillow in return, and soon they’ve devolved into squabbling like children. The stream plays on, ignored, and outside the cold wind of Hyperion city shrieks around the buildings unheeded. 

There's more to be said, and more tears to be shed, and a life-changing decision lingering above their heads, but it'll be okay. Juno knows it with a surety that surprises him. Somehow, someway, they'll make it through.


End file.
